The very first tanks. The first tanks of the First World War. Breakthrough in the technical equipment of the armies The first use of tanks

It makes sense to talk about Russian developments of that time.

The whole world at the beginning of the last century lived in anticipation of a war that mankind did not yet know. On the eve of this war, states united in military-political alliances, waged "small" wars, honing the combat skills of their armies, and invented new types of weapons. One of them is the tank, which first appeared on the battlefields in 1916 and broke all the ideas about the war that existed at that time.

Russia was the first-born in the development of a new machine: in 1911, the son of the brilliant Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, Vasily, developed a project super heavy tank, which combined all the advanced engineering solutions of the time. Here are the technical characteristics of this tank: weight 173.2 tons; armor weight 86.46 t; weight of weapons 10.65 tons; crew 8 people; length with gun 13 m, hull length 10 m, height with machine gun turret raised 4.45 m, height with machine gun turret lowered 3.5 m, hull height 2.8 m; gun ammunition 51 shots; armor thickness 150 mm (forehead) and 100 mm (sides, stern, roof); engine power 250 l. With.; maximum speed 24 km/h; the average specific ground pressure is 2.5 kg/cm2.

The tank was supposed to be armed with 120-mm naval cannon, which was mounted in the bow of the hull. The machine-gun turret mounted on the roof, which could rotate 360 ​​°, rose outward and fell inward also with the help of a pneumatic drive. Getting the amount you need compressed air in the power department provided an engine-driven compressor.

To transfer the tank railway it could be placed on railway ramps and move under its own power.

It is admirable that a talented Russian engineer looked far ahead, arming his offspring with a large-caliber gun (guns of this caliber, 122-125 mm, are installed on almost all modern domestic tanks). The tanks that crawled onto the battlefields of the First World War were much weaker armed, but successfully completed combat missions. Undoubtedly, Mendeleev's tank, if it had been put into mass production, would have become the most outstanding weapon of that war, invulnerable and formidable. It is interesting that many of the engineering solutions identified in the design of Vasily Mendeleev's tank were implemented much later and no longer in our country. For example, air suspension was used in easy english airborne tank "Tetrarch", and the Germans in 1942 exactly, practically unchanged, copied the system of lowering the hull to the ground, using it in the super-heavy 600-mm self-propelled mortar "Thor". Nevertheless, the priority here still remains with Russia.

In 1914, already at the height of the battles of the First World War, the Main Military Technical Directorate received two projects of tracked armored vehicles at once. The first is the "All-terrain vehicle" of the Russian inventor A.A. Porokhovshchikov.

After long delays, on January 13, 1915, Porokhovshchikov was allocated 9,660 rubles for the construction of an all-terrain vehicle. And on February 1, 1915, in the workshops located in the barracks of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment stationed in Riga, the designer had already started building a prototype. After three and a half months, the all-terrain vehicle left the workshops - its tests began. This day - May 18, 1915 - should be considered the birthday of the tank.

The world's first tank had all the main elements of modern combat vehicles: a hull, armament in a rotating turret, and an engine. The hull is streamlined, the armor thickness is 8 millimeters. Very significant angles of inclination of the armor made it more resistant to the effects of armor-piercing means. The undercarriage was protected by bulwarks. The prototype hull consisted of several layers of steel with a layer of hair and sea grass and did not make its way through machine-gun bursts.

A. A. Porokhovshchikov's all-terrain vehicle with a combat weight of 4 tons with a crew of two people developed speeds along the highway up to 25 kilometers per hour.

On a hard road, the Vezdekhod moved quite confidently, despite a weak engine (10 hp), and on December 29, 1916, it reached a speed of 40 versts / hour, which was an exceptionally high figure. At the same time, the car could not move at all on loose snow. Porohovshchikov applied for funding for the construction of an improved model, the Vezdekhod-2, already with an armored hull and armament of four machine guns, but he was refused. In its conclusion about the “Vezdekhod-2”, the GSTU rightly (which happened infrequently) pointed out a number of shortcomings of the project, such as: the impossibility of simultaneous combat operation of three machine guns in the tower (or “conning tower”, as the inventor himself called it), the lack of a differential at the mover, slippage of the rubber band along the drum, and indeed its vulnerability, the low passability of the machine when driving on loose soil, the extreme difficulty of turns, etc. It is possible that in the future A. Porokhovshchikov would have been able to eliminate the most serious shortcomings, but there was no time for this in 1917. Yes, and the front, above all, needed a special positional tank capable of tearing multi-row wire barriers, overcoming wide ditches and generally “iron” the enemy’s defenses.

The Porokhovshchikov all-terrain vehicle was tested several months earlier than the British tested their " little willy". But the English tank, tested on January 30, 1916, was immediately put into service under the brand name MK-1.

In September 1916, the first reports appeared in the press about the use by the British of a new weapon - the "land fleet". These messages were published in the Novoye Vremya newspaper of September 25 (old style), 1916. In connection with these reports, in the same newspaper dated September 29 (old style), 1916, an article appeared “Land Fleet - Russian invention”, which revealed to the general public the unsightly role of the main military-technical department in delaying Russian work on the creation of new weapons - all-terrain combat vehicles.

The second project, embodied "in iron" in the Russian Empire, is the "Tsar Tank" by N.V. Lebedenko, also known as the "Bat". The idea of ​​this unique structure was born by Captain Lebedenko during his service in the Caucasus, when he first saw the carts of local peasants. Being a well-connected person, he "came out" to the very "Father of Russian Aviation" Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky. He recommended his nephews to him - students B.S. Stechkin and A. Mikulin. Software development appearance It was, as it were, a gun carriage enlarged several times with two huge 9-meter drive wheels with tangential spokes (by the way, the strength of these wheels was calculated personally by N.E. Zhukovsky) and a smaller steering wheel, the height of a man. The armament of the Tsar Tank consisted of two guns and machine guns. Each wheel was driven by its own 240 horsepower Maybach engine (!). The main disadvantages of this tank were quite high pressure on the ground and easy vulnerability of the spokes for enemy artillery. During the design process, B. Stechkin and A. Mikulin managed to realize a number of brilliant technical solutions. At the beginning of 1915, a brilliantly calculated project was presented to the GVTU, and a self-propelled model, reduced several times, successfully overcame obstacles in the form of pencil boxes and books in the playroom of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich.

And then, finally, the day of sea trials came. 60 versts north of Moscow, near ancient city Dmitrov, a site was cleared in the forest near the Orudyevo station, which, for the purpose of secrecy, was surrounded by a palisade and an earthen rampart. In August 1915, on the appointed day, in the presence of numerous representatives of the army and the military ministry, the car driven by Mikulin began to move quite confidently, immediately, like a match, breaking a birch tree that was on the way. This event was greeted with applause from those present. However, having passed several tens of meters, the miracle tank got stuck with its rear wheel in a shallow hole and could not move on, despite all the efforts of the Maybach engines that turned red from the effort - even their efforts were not enough to pull out the Tsar Tank.

After such a major failure, interest in the Lebedenko tank immediately died out, the tank was abandoned in the same place where it was tested; in 1923, what was left of the Bat was dismantled, and only the remains of an earthen rampart now remind of the ambitious project of Captain Lebedenko.

As a result, during the First World War, Russian tanks did not appear on the battlefields. But in the set, armored cars were produced that took the most Active participation both in the First World War and in the Civil War that began in Russia. Tellingly, a fairly significant part of them were produced on the chassis of the first domestic cars firm "Russo-Balt". Several types of such units of armored vehicles were produced, but the project of the engineer Kegress, who proposed to transfer the entire military equipment on a half-track. But this reasonable decision was not destined to be realized until 1917 - two revolutions prevented it.

Only in 1919, 6 Austin-Putilovsky-Kegress armored cars were produced at the Putilov factory, which in the same year entered the battle on the side of the Bolsheviks in battles against the troops of N.N. Yudenich near Petrograd. In the West, such a combat vehicle was called the "Russian type of tank."

October 25, 2013

Self-propelled armored van

A modern army cannot be imagined without tanks. They are the main striking force of the ground forces. But the history of the use of these combat vehicles has not even reached the centenary milestone yet.

The idea of ​​protecting a foot soldier from enemy fire has been developed for a long time. Siege towers, used since ancient times, are proof of this. But a vehicle was needed that could move in the combat formations of the infantry and support it with its own fire.

One of the progenitors of modern tanks can be considered the great Leonardo Da Vinci. His self-propelled armored van, according to calculations, was supposed to be driven by the muscular strength of people, through levers and gears. The design involved the placement of lungs artillery pieces and observation tower. The wooden and metal plating of the hull was supposed to reliably protect the crew from arrows and firearms. True, the practical implementation of the project did not come.

Crawler

The idea of ​​creating armored mechanisms was revived in the 19th century, when engines were already widespread, first steam, and then internal combustion and electric.

The first known project that combined the current elements of the tank - a caterpillar track, an engine, artillery and machine gun weapons and armor protection, was developed by the French engineer Edouard Bouyen in 1874. His car was supposed to weigh about 120 tons, and reach speeds of up to 10 km per hour. The planned armament is 12 cannons and 4 mitrailleuses (the predecessor of the machine gun). The number of crew was amazing - 200 fighters! This project was patented, but remained on paper.

The impetus for the development of tank troops was given by the battles of the First World War. After a relatively short maneuvering period, a protracted positional one set in. There was a crisis of military thought. The saturation of the infantry with rapid-fire rifles, machine guns, artillery, engineering equipment of defensive lines led to the fact that neither side was able to break through the front. Dense rifle and machine-gun fire literally mowed down the advancing troops. At the cost of huge losses, it was possible to achieve only small tactical successes. Some completely new methods of breaking defensive orders were needed. It was then that the first tanks entered the arena of war, along with poison gases.

The British are considered the ancestors of tanks. It was they who first put them into mass production and used them on the battlefield. However, the question of superiority is rather controversial. The fact is that the Russian engineer Porohovshchikov developed back in 1914, and in 1915 he created a model of an "all-terrain vehicle" with a caterpillar track, weighing 4 tons, with a crew of 2 people. The project was highly approved, tested, but for some obscure bureaucratic reasons before series production not brought. The tests took place in May 1915, that is, a few months earlier than the British.

Nevertheless, it is England that is considered the official birthplace of tanks. From there it went modern name. In this regard, by the way, there are differences. According to one version, the tank (in English it means tank, tank) was so named in connection with resemblance with a metal tank. Another version says that this happened during covert operation for the transfer of military vehicles to the theater of operations, when they were transported under the guise of containers with liquids.

The very first tanks were called Mark I, and were divided into "females" (with machine guns) and "males" (with mounted guns). The weight of the combat vehicle reached 8.5 tons. The height of the tank was 2.5 meters, width up to 4.3 meters, length - up to 10 meters with a wheeled "tail". The layout of the tank was carried out according to the diamond pattern. An engine with a capacity of 105 horsepower could move this armored miracle over rough terrain at speeds up to 6 km / h. The crew of 8 was protected by 12 mm frontal armor, which at that time was a good cover from fire small arms and machine guns. They were armed with 1 gun and 4 machine guns ("males") or 5 machine guns ("females"). A series of tanks amounted to 150 units.

First combat use tanks took place on September 15, 1916 during the battle on the Somme. Although design flaws were immediately identified, the effect was still amazing. Armored monsters terrified the defending German soldiers. Within one day of the battle, the British managed to achieve tactical success, breaking the enemy defenses to a depth of 5 km, suffering losses 20 times less than what happened before.

Thus, the combat significance of tanks was proven. The development of armored vehicles continued actively in all major states. Soon it was simply impossible to imagine the armed forces without tanks.

In a few years, tank troops will celebrate their centennial anniversary. Unrecognizably changed the appearance of the combat armored vehicle. But the main requirements are the same - these are speed, maneuverability, security and firepower.

Massive, gray-smoky mirage -

Such is the mountain range in the blood of dawn.

Dangerously cut rocky slope,

Where did the pencil go on the map?

Where is the tank behind the tank, noses into the ditch,

Direct fire hit, creating a barrier.

Loaded with weapons of all stripes,

On the wire, in the roar of guns,

The infantry rushes forward. Reflected

There is only confusion on their faces. run

To death, hasten to death, crawl to death ...

The pulse rumbles, the steel gnashes, in the mud

Hope is sinking... God help me!

English poet Siegfried Sassoon, World War I veteran

Tank as a solution to the problem of positional impasse

The offensive of the Anglo-French troops on the Somme River in Northern France by the autumn of 1916 was completely exhausted, reduced to a positional massacre. Attempts to break through the German defensive positions, which consisted of numerous rows of trenches, generously “seasoned” with barbed wire, each time turned into failure. In the absence of noticeable results, the losses in the offensive exceeded the losses of the defending side at times - for example, on the first day of the offensive, the British lost about 20,000 people killed and 40,000 wounded, while the German losses amounted to only about 6,000 soldiers. The situation for the British seemed a dead end.

General Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France in World War I

But the English General Douglas Haig had another trump card hidden up his sleeve - a new secret weapon, which, for the purpose of conspiracy, was called tank - “tank, tank”. Having started the production of tanks back in 1915, by the fall of 1916, the British were able to make about fifty armored diamond-shaped monsters. Mark I tracked vehicles were produced in two versions - "females" with machine guns and "males" with mixed machine guns and artillery (two 57-mm guns and a machine gun).

Transferred to the mainland English tanks secretly delivered to the front line. As a result of night crossings along unexplored routes, only 32 out of 49 vehicles managed to get to the front lines - some of the tanks got stuck in the mud, some were out of order due to breakdowns. The "lunar" landscape of the battlefield with numerous explosive funnels and the thunder of artillery cannonade stunned the personnel of the crews of combat vehicles - most of the tankers were at the front for the first time.

"Lunar" landscape of the battlefield on the Somme, 1916

The British planned to attack the villages of Gwedcourt and Fleur by attacking their 4th Army, which were defended by the German 1st Army. This time the suicide attack of the infantry was preceded by the debut of tanks, on which the British had high hopes.

The first tank battle in history

In the early morning of September 15, 1916, the devil himself appeared before the eyes of the dug-in German infantrymen. In the intervals of barrage, prudently left by the British gunners, something hitherto unseen was moving towards the German positions.

The first to attack the Germans (the first tank attack in history!) at 5.15 in the morning rushed the “male” tank D1 of Captain Mortimer. After destroying a German machine-gun nest in the defensive junction between Ginshi and Delville Wood, this tank was put out of action by a shell that hit the undercarriage. But the rest of the tanks were already entering the battle.

Presumably, Captain Mortimer's D1 tank, which first entered the battle on September 15, 1916.

Breaking the barbed wire and wading through the chains of trenches, the Mk.1s slowly but surely crawled forward, at the same time writing themselves and their crews into world history. The crew members, by the way, had to work in conditions far from comfortable. The roar of guns and machine guns, the terrible smoke from powder and exhaust gases were harmoniously complemented by tightness - inside each of the first tanks there was a miniature warehouse that included tanks with engine oil, fuel, water, a two-day supply of food, spare barrels for machine guns, a spare machine gun, equipment , as well as means of communication in the form signal flag, signal lamps and cages with carrier pigeons.

The reaction of the German soldiers to the attack of the British tanks was panic. The usual for the First World War military psychosis from continuous artillery cannonades - shell-shock - no longer surprised anyone. But the shock of the German troops from the appearance of tanks was even stronger. The phrase "The devil is coming!", Shouted out by one of the German soldiers, spread through the trenches like a fire. Through the viewing slots, the tankers watched with satisfaction the figures in gray fieldgrau uniforms fleeing from their positions. To the mystical fear was added the quite rational horror of the fact that the individual small arms of the infantry against the new steel monsters were almost useless.

Tank Mk.1 at the Battle of the Somme, 1916

During the offensive, some of the far from perfect vehicles crashed into German shelters with a roar or got stuck helplessly in shell craters. The crews had to urgently leave the fighting compartment of the stuck vehicles and try to return them to service. During the attack on different reasons 10 tanks were disabled, 7 more received minor damage. But those from the Mk.I that went further proved to be very successful.

The tank "male" D17 "Dinnaken" Lieutenant Hastie first entered the village of Fleur, slowly chasing the fleeing and hiding in the cellars of the Germans. A British reconnaissance aircraft flying over the battlefield reported with pleasure:

"The tank is moving along the main street of the village of Fleur, and the British soldiers are following him in good spirits."

By making passages in wire obstacles and crushing machine-gun nests, the tanks provided tangible assistance to the British infantry. Stopped over a German trench, the Mk.1 cleared it with machine-gun fire and then moved along the trench, taking a total of 300 prisoners. Another tank opened the way for the infantry to the village of Guedecourt, after which, however, it was hit artillery shot. From the fire-engulfed car, only two crew members managed to escape.

results

The unconditional tactical success of the first use of tanks had a twofold meaning. On the one hand, five hours of battle with their participation allowed the British, with relatively small losses, to capture a section of the front with a length of up to 10 km and advance several kilometers in depth. Positions were taken, attacks on which for a long time remained unsuccessful. Skeptical about the capabilities of tanks, General Douglas Haig immediately ordered the production of another thousand vehicles.

On the other hand, for the sake of a tactical offensive, the British sacrificed the effect of surprise. The impression of the first use of stunning combat vehicles at the same time in many areas could be much stronger. In reality, the news about their use instantly spread across the front, and then around the world. In almost every power participating in the First World War, including on the side of the enemy, the work of military intelligence officers and engineers began to boil to create their own tanks and means of combating them.

A drawing of a German anti-tank grenade obtained by Russian intelligence, 1917. The development of tanks and means of combating them since the autumn of 1916 has been in full swing

The Russian Empire, due to well-known revolutionary events, did not have time to create its own "land dreadnoughts", although it carefully followed their evolution. In the papers of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, preserved in the military archives, there are such reports for December 1916 (the spelling of the original source is preserved):

“In Germany, at the factories of Krupp, Erhart and Hansa-Loyd in Bremen, up to 120 Tanks are being built, so far ... two types. It is assumed that the Germans will use them on all fronts where they attack, but not for defense ... in the best way actions against "Tanko" the fire of trench 3.7 centimeter guns is recognized.

It was the events of September 15, 1916 that made the word "tank" international and endowed it with a new, military meaning. Curious endings at the end of a word in the report look funny and are explained by the novelty of this borrowing word in Russian at that time.

Simultaneously with the appearance of the new word "tank" in the military lexicon, the war took on a new look.

Sources:

• Mitchel F. Tanks at War. The history of the development of tanks in the world war 1914–1918. M., 1935.
• Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA). F. 493. Op. 2. D. 6. Part 2. Summaries of information received by the Main Directorate of the General Staff.
• RGVIA. F. 802. Op. 4. D. 1477. Materials on measures to combat tanks in case of their use by foreign powers.
• Fedoseev S. L. Tanks of the First World War. M., 2012.

First British tank Mark I.

By the end of 1916, artillery and machine guns dominated the battlefields. Artillery forced the opposing sides to dig in deeper, and machine gun bursts began to mow down the enemy infantry that had risen to attack. The war turned into a positional war and trench lines stretched for many kilometers along the front. It seemed that there was no way out of this situation, but on September 15, 1916, after six months of preparation, the Anglo-French army launched an offensive in northern France. This offensive went down in history as the "Battle of the Somme". This battle is notable only for the fact that it was possible to throw back the German troops for several kilometers, but also for the fact that for the first time English tanks took part in the battle.

HThe Allied offensive on the Somme River began on September 15, 1916, after a massive and lengthy artillery preparation, as a result of which it was planned to destroy the German engineering defenses. The British soldiers were even told that all they had to do was walk towards the German defenses on foot and capture their positions. But despite this, the offensive stalled: the German positions were practically not affected by artillery strikes, and their army on the defensive was still combat-ready. The Entente army was bleeding, trying to break through the German positions, but all efforts were spent completely in vain. Then the newly appointed British commander-in-chief, General Douglas Haig, decided to use a new weapon - tanks that had just been delivered to the front. The old military man treated the novelty with great doubts, but the situation at the front obligedthrow the last trump cards into battle.

Haig was convinced that he had chosen the wrong time for the offensive. Autumn rains have soaked the ground quite badly, and the tanks need solid ground. Finally - and this is the most important - there are still too few tanks, only a few dozen. But there was no other way out.

The first British tank to accept baptism of fire in the Battle of the Somme, there was a heavy tank Mark I, which had weapons: two rifled 57-mm cannons of the Six Pounder, Single Tube model, two 7.7-mm Hotchkiss M1909 machine guns with air-cooled barrels, located behind the cannons in sponsons, as well as one such machine gun was placed in the frontal part of the tank and was serviced by the commander, and in some cases another machine gun was installed in the stern of the tank. The crew of such a tank consisted of 8 people.

49 Mark I tanks were ordered to move to the forward positions. It was a dark night. Steel masses crawled like turtles in the direction where flares lit up in the sky every minute. After 3 hours of march, only 32 vehicles appeared at the places indicated for concentration: 17 tanks got stuck along the road or got up due to various problems.

Having turned off the engines, the tankers fussed near their steel horses. They poured oil into the engines, water into the radiators, checked the brakes and weapons, filled the tanks with gasoline. An hour and a half before dawn, the crews started their engines again, and the cars crawled towards the enemy ...

british tank Mark I after the attack on the River Somme, September 25, 1916.

At dawn the German trenches appeared. The soldiers sitting in them were amazed at the sight of strange machines. However, the vaunted German discipline prevailed, and they opened a hurricane of fire from rifles and machine guns. But the bullets did no harm to the tanks, bouncing off the armored walls like peas. Coming closer, the tanks themselves opened fire with their cannons and machine guns. From a hail of shells and bullets fired from a short distance, the Germans became hot. But they did not flinch, hoping that the clumsy vehicles would get stuck in the multi-row wire fence set up in front of the trenches. However, the wire for the tanks did not constitute any obstacle. They easily crushed it with their steel caterpillars, like grass, or tore it like a cobweb. Here the German soldiers embraced real horror. Many of them began to jump out of the trenches and rushed to run. Others raised their hands in surrender. Following the tanks, hiding behind their armor, was the English infantry.

The Germans did not have vehicles similar to tanks, and that is why the effect of the first massive combat use of tanks exceeded all expectations.

Tank - an armored fighting vehicle on tracks, usually with cannon armament as the main one.

At the very beginning, when tank building had just appeared and developed, tanks were produced with exclusively machine-gun armament, and after the Second World War began to conduct experiments on the creation of tanks with missile weapons. There are even tanks with a flamethrower. There is no exact definition of a tank, since its idea was constantly changing and differed in different armies. Tanks from the times of the First World War, when meeting them for the first time, you may not recognize at first, it seems that these are not tanks at all (for example, Saint-Chamon), or, let's take, for example, the Swedish machine Strv-103, which is classified not like a tank, but like a tank destroyer. Some machines (for example, Type 94), which are found in the domestic literature under the name "small tanks", are called wedges in Western literature. Despite being heavy assault tank Tortoise (A39) is called a tank, it does not have a turret, and therefore some experts refer to it as a super-heavy self-propelled gun. Tanks differ from other cannon-armed tracked combat vehicles mainly in the ability to quickly transfer fire over a wide range of elevation and horizontal angles. In most cases, they do this by mounting a cannon in a horizontally rotating turret, although there are a few exceptions. Here, for example, is a self-propelled artillery mount, it is similar to a tank in its design, but it is designed to solve completely different tasks: destroy enemy tanks from ambushes or fire support for troops from a closed firing position, so it has some differences, and first of all it concerns balance "firepower / security". The composition of the armored forces is specially divided into tanks and "specialized combat vehicles” with the aim of highlighting “specialized combat vehicles” in special units in accordance with applicable military doctrine. For example, during WWII american army used the doctrine of General McNair, which assigned the role of fighting enemy tanks to "tank destroyers" (M10 Wolverine, M18 Hellcat) - as they called combat vehicles, structurally similar to light or medium tanks with effective anti-tank weapons, while the tanks themselves had a different the task is to support the infantry in battle. In the domestic literature, the same vehicles are called anti-tank self-propelled guns.

Where did the name come from

The word "tank" comes from English word tank, and translates as "tank" or "tank". Its name comes from this: when the time came to send the first tanks to the front, British counterintelligence started a rumor that the Russian government had ordered a batch of fuel tanks from England. And the tanks were sent by rail under the guise of tanks (it was lucky that giant size and the shape of the first tanks were consistent with this version). They even wrote in Russian “Caution. Petrograd". And so they got the name. It is curious that in Russia the new combat vehicle was called "tub" from the very beginning (another translation of the word tank).
The history of the development of the design and combat use of tanks

The advent of tanks
Tanks appeared during the First World War. After the immediate initial maneuver stage of hostilities, a balance was established on the fronts (the so-called "trench warfare"). It was almost impossible to break through the enemy defense lines in depth. The only way, according to which it was possible to prepare an offensive and break into the enemy’s defenses, consisted in the powerful use of artillery in order to destroy defensive structures and destroy manpower, and then bring their troops into the breakthrough. But it turned out that it would not be possible to bring troops into the “clean” breakthrough area quickly enough because of the roads plowed up and destroyed by explosions, and besides, the enemies managed to pull up reserves and block the breakthrough along the existing railway and dirt roads in the depths of their defense. Build tanks decided in 1915 almost simultaneously by Great Britain, France and Russia. The first British tank model was fully completed in 1916, and when the tank was tested, production received the first order for 100 vehicles. It was a Mark I tank - a rather imperfect fighting vehicle, which was produced in two versions - "male" (with cannon armament in the side sponsons) and "female" (only with machine gun armament). It soon became known that the machine-gun "females" had a rather low efficiency. They could not fight the enemy's armored vehicles and with great difficulty destroyed the firing points. After that, a limited edition of "females" was released, which still had a machine gun in the left sponson, and a cannon in the right one. The soldiers immediately aptly called them "hermaphrodites".
For the first time tanks (models Mk.1) were used by the British army against german army September 15, 1916 in France, on the river Somme. During this battle, it was determined that the design of the tank was not sufficiently developed - out of 49 tanks that the British prepared for the attack, only 32 advanced to their original positions (and 17 tanks broke down), and out of these thirty-two that launched the attack, 5 got stuck in a swamp and 9 failed for technical reasons. However, even these remaining 18 tanks managed to advance 5 km deep into the defense, and losses in this offensive operation turned out to be 20 times smaller than usual.
Despite the fact that due to the small number of tanks, the front could not be completely broken through, the new kind military equipment nevertheless showed its capabilities and it turned out that tanks have a great future. At first, the appearance of tanks at the front, the German soldiers were madly afraid of them.
The main allies of the British western front, the French, developed and released a very successful one (so successful that it was still used at the beginning of World War II in the armies of Poland and France) light tank Renault FT-17. While this tank was being designed, for the first time many solutions were applied, which later became classic. It had a rotating turret with light gun or a machine gun (in contrast to the "sponsive", that is, in the protrusions on the sides of the hull, the location of weapons in the Mk.1), low ground pressure (and, as a result, high maneuverability), relatively high speed and good maneuverability.
In Russia, the Porokhovshchikov tank (“Russian all-terrain vehicle”) and the Lebedenko wheeled tank were among the first to be created, each of which was made in only one (experimental) copy. The designers explain this either by the impracticality of the design, or by the "inertness of the tsarist government." The Russian army in the First World War had neither domestic nor imported tanks. Already during civil war The White Army used the tanks that it received from the Entente countries in small quantities. One of the Renault FT-17 tanks captured by the Red Army was sent to Moscow in the spring of 1919, where it was dismantled and examined. Thus the problem of creating domestic tank was solved by the creation of type M tanks based on the design of the French Renault FT-17. The first of the M-type tanks was named “Freedom Fighter Comrade. Lenin. In the period from 1920-1921, 15 tanks were manufactured, but in the spring of 1921, due to the end of the civil war and intervention, the project was closed. These tanks did not participate in battles, they were used only in agricultural work (like tractors) and at military parades.

Tanks of the interwar period (1919-1938)

In the period between the world wars, other states decided to develop tanks, in addition to Great Britain, France and Germany. At the same time when general staffs and the governments of major world powers, talked about the results of the First World War, and understood the inevitability of a future, even more bloody war, they also developed global strategies for military operations. The General Staffs adopted a strategy that gave great importance tank troops and set appropriate tasks for weapons designers and factories producing tanks.
In the interwar period, tank builders and the military did not yet have a consensus on the optimal tactics for using tanks and their design. As a result, tanks of such designs were released, which later proved to be unviable, due to their narrow specialization, and due to the fact that they were not always used for their intended purpose. Thus, light tanks were relatively weakly armored, although quite often they were high-speed (for example, the Soviet BT-7 ).
Their armor served only as protection against small arms bullets and shell fragments, and at the same time it could be easily penetrated by anti-tank rifle bullets and anti-tank gun projectiles, starting with a caliber of 37 mm. The armament of these tanks of this period was also too weak (artillery calibers 25-37 mm), the number of its crew was insufficient (2-3 people), and the living conditions were at the limit physiological capabilities tankers. At the same time, in the early 1930s, the talented American tank designer J. Christie created an original independent suspension scheme. At that time, the designs of amphibious and even airborne tanks were being actively developed.
The inactive multi-turreted giants, who carried several different-caliber cannons and machine guns, such as the French
70 ton Char 2C
and Soviet 50-ton
This scheme also included a larger crew (up to 10-12 people), which led to the difficulty of centralized fire control in a combat situation and slightly complicated the design. Big sizes(especially length and height) could expose him and, as a result, increased vulnerability on the battlefield. The then adapted carbureted engines aviation type decided the low traction and dynamic qualities of such "super tanks", especially when they turn around. In the interwar period, the first tanks with diesel engines were also developed, for example, in Japan in 1932 (Mitsubishi diesel engine, 52 hp). In the USSR, already in the mid-1930s, a program was developed for the widespread dieselization of tanks of all classes, but it was only possible to equip medium and heavy vehicles with such engines (diesel V-2, 500 hp). In other countries, diesel engines were put on tanks to a relatively limited extent until the 1950s.

Tanks of the war period (1939-1945)

The Second World War was an occasion to increase and improve the production of tanks. In just 6 years, tanks have made a huge leap forward than in the previous twenty. At this time, many tanks already had anti-shell armor, powerful long-barreled guns (caliber up to 152 mm), and at the end of the war they already had the first night (infrared) sights (although experiments on placing them on a tank were carried out in the USSR before the war) , and the radio equipment of tanks began to be considered a necessary part of them. The tactics of using tanks have also improved significantly. Already in the first period of the war (1939-1941), German military leaders showed the whole world how the use of tank formations made it possible to carry out operations on the operational and strategic encirclement and quickly win the war (the so-called "blitzkrieg"). Nevertheless, other states (Great Britain, France, Poland, the USSR, etc.) created their own theories of the tactics of using tanks, in many respects similar to the German one. During the Second World War, the German school improved the increase in the armor and length of guns, observation devices (including infrared devices night vision), habitability, and the Soviet school took mainly manufacturability and mass production, making serious changes to the design of the basic types of tanks only when absolutely necessary.
T-34
HF
IP
The Soviet tank school also created quite successful models of other types. armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery mounts and tank destroyers. The American school lagged behind in terms of layout and manufacturability from the very beginning, but it still managed to catch up by the end of the war by deploying mass production of a few selected models, good quality steel and gunpowder, as well as radio (at least two walkie-talkies per tank). The most successful German tanks were:
PzKpfw IV
"Tiger" , with some reservations
"Panther"
and "Royal tiger".
But the best Soviet tanks that took part in World War II were recognized medium tank T-34 (in different options, including its late version T-34-85
with various modifications of 85 mm guns) and heavy tank IS-2 .
And the very best American tank became M4 Sherman , which was widely supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease.
Tanks of the post-war period

Tanks of the post-war period are divided into three generations.
The first generation of post-war tanks began to be created directly during the Second World War, although they did not take part in hostilities: these are Soviet medium T-44
T-54
and heavy tanks:
IS-3
IS-4
IS-7
T-10
American:
M26 Pershing
M46 "Patton"
M47
English A41 "Centurion" and others.
Light tanks finally turn into specialized combat vehicles: amphibious (Soviet PT-76), reconnaissance (American M41 Walker Bulldog) and later air transportable (American M551 Sheridan). Since the mid 1950s. medium and heavy types of tanks are giving way to the so-called. "standard" or "basic" battle tank». Characteristic features these tanks are reinforced anti-projectile armor, large-caliber guns (minimum 90 mm), including smooth-bore guns suitable for launching rockets, powerful diesel engines, and later the first means of protecting the crew from WMD. Soviet tanks belong to this type of tanks (but still the first generation):
T-55 T-62
American M48
English chieftain
French AMX-30 and others.
The second generation of post-war tanks was created in the 1960-1970s. for operations under the conditions of the use by the enemy of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and taking into account the emergence of new powerful anti-tank weapons. These tanks get improved armor, full complex to protect the crew from WMD, are saturated with electronics (laser rangefinders, ballistic computers, etc.), their firepower is increased due to the use of larger-caliber guns, and high-power multi-fuel engines are beginning to be used. Soviet tanks of this period are equipped with automatic loaders. The second generation tanks include Soviet:
T-64
T-72
american M60
West Germanic Leopard-1
At this time, a number of extensive programs were also undertaken to upgrade first generation tanks to the level of second generation tanks, for example, upgrading the M48A5 tank (in the US Army) and M48A2G (in the Bundeswehr) to the level of the M60 tank.

According to the performance characteristics of tanks of the first and second generations, the USSR was able to get ahead of its potential opponents, but the need to limit the mass and size of the main type of tank (due to the need to fit into the standard railway gauge) and some lag in equipping with electronics led to the rapid obsolescence of Soviet tanks of the first and second post-war generations, which was confirmed in the wars of the 1960-1990s. in the Middle East.
Tanks of the third generation were created in the 1970-1980s, and began to enter the troops in the 1980s. Tanks of this generation are characterized by the use of new, high-tech means of protection ( active protection, dynamic protection), saturation with perfect electronics, heavy-duty and compact gas turbine engines are beginning to be installed on some models of tanks.
The tanks of this generation include Soviet and Russian:
T-72B
T-80
T-90
American M1A2 "Abrams"
West Germanic "Leopard-2"
French "Leclerc"
and others.

tank design

Layout
At present, the vast majority of tanks are built according to the so-called classical layout, the main features of which are the installation of the main armament (cannon) in a 360 ° rotating turret and the rear location of the engine compartment. The exceptions here are the Swedish tank Strv-103
(turretless scheme) and Israeli tanks "Merkava"
models 1, 2, 3 and 4 with a front engine compartment.

tank engine

In the early stages of the development of tank building, a gasoline carburetor engine of an automobile type, and later of an aircraft type (including star-shaped engines), was usually used. Immediately before the Second World War, as well as during it, diesel engines became widespread (mainly in the USSR and the USA), which became the main type of tank engines throughout the world from the second half of the 1950s, later replaced by multi-fuel engines, and in the last two -three decades and gas turbine engines (GTE). The first production tank with a gas turbine engine as the main engine was the Soviet T-80

In the 1930-1950s. there were disputes between supporters and opponents of the use as power plant tanks of two types of internal combustion engines - carburetor and diesel. This dispute ended final victory diesel proponents. In our time, the main dispute is between supporters and opponents of the use of diesel engines and gas turbine engines on tanks. Both types of engines have their own advantages and disadvantages. During the First World War, a steam tank was built, and in the 1950s, a number of projects for atomic tanks were developed in the United States, but all these types of power plant were not distributed in the end.

Advantages of gas turbine engines over diesel engines:
Less consumption of lubricants.
Less time to prepare for launch, especially in the cold.
Exhaust gases from gas turbine engines are much less toxic and can be directly used to heat the tank, while tanks with diesel engines require a special heat exchanger.
More favorable to the transport machine torque application, the adaptability ratio is 2.6. This coefficient determines the reduction in the number of switchings when driving over rough terrain.
More simple system transmission.
Better “non-stopping”, that is, the ability of the engine to continue working, even if the tank hits an obstacle or gets stuck in deep mud.
The level of unmasking noises is 1.75-2 times lower.
The resource of gas turbine engines is 2-3 times higher than that of piston engines, due to the balance and minimization of rubbing surfaces in the engine.
Great compactness.
More power for the same size (weight)

Advantages of a diesel engine over a gas turbine engine:

Greater reliability in dusty conditions. Unlike aircraft turbines, tank turbines operate close to the ground and pass several cubic meters of air through them in a minute, often containing large quantities dust raised by the tank. Hence, the requirements for the incoming air purification system are much higher.
Slight power drop at high temperatures environment.
Less fuel consumption by 1.8-2 times, that is, on the one hand, cheaper operation, on the other - more stock stroke with the same amount of transported fuel
The cost of a diesel engine is up to ten times less.
Better fire safety due to the use of low flammability diesel fuel.
Possibility of repair in field conditions.
Another important advantage is the ability to start the tank’s diesel engine from a tug, i.e. “from a pusher”, so a tank with such an engine is more likely to continue its task with the help of another tank
Diesel engines heat up less, so they are less visible to thermal imagers.
To overcome water barriers along the bottom, a tank with a gas turbine engine requires an exhaust pipe - exhaust into the water is impossible for it. conducted by a government commission showed
The T-80 tanks, whose nominal specific power exceeded the T-64A and T-72 by 30 and 25%, respectively, have an advantage in tactical speeds in European conditions only by 9-10%, and in conditions Central Asia- no more than 2%.
Hourly fuel consumption gas turbine tanks was higher than diesel ones by 65-68%, kilometer consumption - by 40-50%, and the cruising range for fuel is less by 26-31%; this led to the need, when organizing marches, to provide for the possibility of refueling T-80 tanks during daily transitions.
At an altitude of 3 km above sea level, the power loss for the 5TDF engine reached 9%, for the V-46 - 5%, for the GTD-1000T - 15.5%.

Diesel tanks are currently in the tank parks of 111 countries of the world, and gas turbine tanks are in the tank parks of 9 countries of the world. The developers, manufacturers and suppliers of gas turbine tanks are the USA and Russia ( Soviet Union). Diesel tanks form the basis of the tank parks of the armies of all countries of the world, with the exception of the United States. The development of world tank building and the tank market in 2003-2012. define 25 special programs, of which 23 relate to diesel tanks, only 2 - to gas turbines. In Germany, MTU Friedrichshafen is currently developing new high-tech fourth-generation 890 series diesel engines for future armored combat vehicles. Many tank-buying countries prefer diesel-powered models and even require gas turbines to be replaced with diesels as a condition for being admitted to the tender. So, in 2004, Australia chose the M1A2 Abrams tank as its future tank, but on the condition that the gas turbine engine of the tank in it would be replaced with a diesel engine. In the USA, even specifically for export purposes, a tank was developed M1A2 "Abrams" with diesel engine.
There are design solutions that can significantly improve the performance of diesel engines. In general, despite the statements of supporters of each type of engine, at present one cannot speak of the absolute superiority of one of them.
Modern diesel engines, as a rule, are multi-fuel, can operate on the entire range of fuels: gasolines of all types, including high-octane aviation gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel with any cetane number, but aviation kerosene serves as nominal fuel in peacetime. The vast majority of diesel engines are equipped with a turbocharging system, and in recent years, with intercoolers (intercoolers).

Chassis
All tanks have caterpillar propulsion, the prototype of which was patented back in 1818 by the Frenchman Dubochet. This design of the undercarriage allows the tank to move easily in off-road conditions, along different types soils. The caterpillars of modern tanks are steel, with a metal or rubber-metal hinge (RMSH), along which the tank rides on road wheels (usually rubber-coated; in modern tanks their number is from five to seven). In some models top part caterpillars, sagging, rely on road wheels, in others special support rollers of small diameter are used. As a rule, there are guide wheels in the front part, which, together with the tension mechanism, provide the required track tension. The tracks are driven by engaging them with a drive wheel, the torque for which is supplied from the engine through the transmission. By changing the rewind speed of one or both tracks, the tank can make a turn, including a turn on the spot.

An important parameter is the area of ​​that part of the caterpillar that is in contact with the ground (the bearing surface of the caterpillar), more precisely, the ratio of the mass of the tank to this area - the specific pressure on the ground. The smaller it is, the softer soils the tank can move, i.e., the higher its ground clearance.

Ground pressure of some modern tanks

All tanks have a suspension system (suspension) - a set of parts, assemblies and mechanisms that connect the vehicle body with the axles of the road wheels. The suspension system is designed to transfer the weight of the tank through the track rollers and the track to the ground, to mitigate shocks and shocks acting on the tank hull, and to quickly dampen the hull vibrations. The quality of the suspension system to a large extent determines the average speed of the movement of tanks across the terrain, the accuracy of fire on the move, the efficiency of the crew, the reliability and durability of the tank equipment.